Chapter 22 #3
“No, Dalila,” I said firmly, my heart sinking. “Nor you, Majed—drop your hand away from that knife.” I gave them both the
fiercest look I could. “Tinbu is the only one who could possibly patch this ship up. And if it is not patched up, everyone on it will die. You will stay here and save him. Promise me you will save him . If I can’t outwit Falco, do whatever is necessary to keep yourselves and the crew alive.”
Dalila opened and closed her mouth, looking more emotional than I had ever seen her. “I swore to return you to your daughter.”
Her words were a knife to my heart. “We are not yet dead, Dalila.”
Majed grabbed my wrist as I stood, anguish and fear in his face. “Do not be proud. The Frank may let you live.”
“I don’t intend to be proud,” I said, trying to sound brave. “I’m a pirate, not an idiot knight.”
But I was a pirate who trembled as I crossed the Marawati , the eyes of my crew heavy upon me.
The weight of their lives heavy upon me.
The state of my ship and the faces I saw missing tearing at my soul.
A clever trickster knows when she has lost, knows when to surrender to fight another day.
And yet I still freed my blades, my sword in one hand and my grandfather’s khanjar in the other as I slipped past the fallen sailcloth and got my first good look at the Frank’s enslaved marid.
“God save me,” I said hoarsely.
Even half submerged, the tentacled sea scorpion towered over the Marawati . Its crown of broken timbers were the remains of Falco’s ship, bonded to its massive skull with craggy blossoms of dead coral,
rotting seaweed, and jagged broken shells like some twisted interpretation of a palanquin. Cracks traced out across the marid’s
head like an infected wound, weeping silvery ichor. Pustules and blisters covered other parts of the beast’s body, disease-ridden
and foul-smelling. Its bladed tail arched out of sight, melting into the gloom, though I could feel it hanging overhead like
an executioner’s axe.
“There you are,” Falco drawled from a perch in his ruined ship. “I feared you might have perished in the attack.” He made
as though to move toward the Marawati .
“That’s close enough,” I snapped, raising my sword. Several of my men followed suit, even as the Frank’s mercenaries—many
sporting burns and injuries from the explosion in Socotra—flanked him.
Falco snorted. “I know your people have fierce hearts and a great love of martyrdom, but look around you. You do realize with
a snap of my fingers, I could have all of you drowned and devoured.”
He had no sooner said the words than the tentacles around the Marawati abruptly dragged the ship lower. Water surged over the deck, twining around my ankles.
“Enough!” I made no move to lower my weapon, but Falco lifted a hand and his marid relented, the Marawati bobbing back upward.
He had made his point and I feared my ship could not take much more—God knew if the Marawati was even seaworthy at this point.
I counted only twelve men with Falco now, but I’d learned the hard way what they were physically capable of and feared our superior numbers would not be enough.
“What do you want?” I asked, the words bitter in my mouth.
Falco jumped from his perch, landing on a boil on the creature’s skull. The marid let out a high-pitched squeal of pain, but
the Frank seemed unbothered. He was armed this time, a broadsword at his side.
He kicked one of the marid’s tentacles, and it whimpered. “This creature may have served in capturing you, but it is an animal,
unreliable and hungry. Therefore, I am still in need of a good vessel and talented crew. Join me, hand Dunya over, and I will
let you and your shipmates live.”
“Dunya is not here.”
Falco strode closer, his sinister half smile unwavering. “If I begin feeding your crew one by one to my beast, how many will
it take before you stop lying?”
“You will recall the last time you tried to force my hand, we blew up your men.”
“That you did.” Falco hopped from the creature’s skull onto the Marawati , and the moment his feet touched my boat, I felt dirty. “I did not like that, al-Sirafi. I offered you a gift, an incomparable
opportunity, and you threw it in my face. I hoped you might be cleverer than those of your faith I have killed in the north.
But your people only understand violence, don’t they?”
He unsheathed his sword. It slipped silently from its scabbard, glittering as the rain misted against steel. Dread crawled
through me. I had been sparring with Tinbu and the other men when we had time, but I hadn’t been in a true sword fight in
nearly a decade, and I’d never battled a Frank. I’d never even seen a Frank fight. I knew neither their style nor its strengths and weaknesses.
But I did know my Marawati .
“Now, listen,” I started, lowering my scimitar. “There is no reason we cannot—” I lunged forward, sliding on the wet deck as I dodged past and slashed the backs of his knees. I got his left leg good, blood staining my blade, but that was not my primary target.
The ropes holding the yard were.
I ducked as it came swinging for both of us, but the Frank was not as swift. The yard smashed into his chest, sending him
stumbling. I ran up a stack of crates, meaning to cut him down from above, but one of the creature’s tentacles seized my ankle.
It tossed me to the deck, and I rolled just in time to avoid Falco’s sword cleaving me in two. I was on my feet the next moment,
breathing fast, but I’d landed badly on my weak knee, and it jostled unreliably as we clashed again. Several of my men moved
to assist, but I waved them off. The Frank was clearly the vengeful type, and if he struck me down, they didn’t need to follow
me into death when he’d made his need for sailors plain.
Our styles were as mismatched as our blades. Falco fought well, his training and comfort with his weapon evident in every
move. But he was not the best man I’d fought, and a decade ago I wouldn’t have been barely missing the strikes that came hammering
my way. Now my arms were shaking and sweat poured from my brow as I narrowly dodged back, forced to defend myself instead
of being on the offensive. I was a shadow of my former glory, the sparring I’d done be damned.
It must have been obvious. Falco smirked. “I’d heard you were a more accomplished fighter. I suppose retirement had its downsides.”
I gritted my teeth. “It was nice while it lasted.”
His sword bore down against mine, nearing my throat. “Your life would be better spent in my service than ended before your
people. I can see the panic in your eyes, al-Sirafi. This need not continue.”
“Oh, fuck off , you fish-brained wizard.” Grabbing for the pile of turned-over carpenter’s tools, I dropped a hand from my sword, picked
up a hammer, and smashed it into Falco’s wrist.
He yelped in genuine pain, a glorious sound, and jerked back, removing the broadsword from where it had been bearing down upon my neck and foolishly offering a clean path to smash him in the face with the most excellent hammer. I moved to do so...
Then he was gone, retreating with unnatural speed.
Well, shit. I suppose Falco’s men were not the only ones who had been transformed.
I didn’t let my surprise linger, taking advantage of the moment he was briefly on the defensive by charging forward and slashing
down again with my scimitar. He blocked my blade with his own, shoving me back so hard I slipped on the wet deck. I cursed
as my knee nearly gave way, and Falco grinned, seeming to spot the weakness. He lunged—
“Stop!” a wavering voice cried.
Dunya .
The young scholar looked terribly vulnerable and small, standing in the open galley door as the wind and rain whipped at her
oversized robe. Majed made a wild grab to pull her back, but it was too late.
Falco had spotted her.
“Dunya,” he greeted coldly. “Good to see your recklessness did not kill you.”
“Do not pretend to care for me,” she said, trembling. “You are a monster who cares only for yourself.”
“On the contrary, I care very much for the rarity of your knowledge. It will make you a leading light in the new world, if
you are wise enough to offer amends.” His eyes narrowed. “Do you think me a fool not to have noticed what you took? Those
tablets lead to the Moon, don’t they?”
“These tablets?” Dunya pulled them from her robe. “Why, yes. Yes, they do.”
She dashed them against the deck.
I gasped as the ancient clay slabs shattered into dust. Falco snarled, but Dunya only drew up, looking more defiant.
“And now that knowledge only exists here,” she warned, tapping her head. “If you want the Moon of Saba, you will let the Marawati and its people go.”
“That was not my offer,” Falco snapped. “And I’m half inclined to drown them for your insolence.”
Oh, great, now I had to be the sensible one between the sorcerous fanatic and the dramatic teenager. “You still need a ship,”
I reminded him. “And a crew. We will take your offer. Leave Dunya alone.”
He glared at me. “The Marawati and its crew will see me to Socotra. You ,” he said to Dunya. “You will get me the Moon, or I will harvest each of these people before your eyes. Understand?”
A doomed expression I didn’t like flickered in Dunya’s gaze. “I will get you to the Moon of Saba. I swear on God and my ancestors.”
“And he won’t touch my people,” I added sharply. “Nor force his foul potion upon them.”
“Agreed,” Dunya said, turning back to the Frank. “I will get you the Moon, but when the time comes that we enter that cave,
you will release the Marawati ’s crew unharmed.”
Falco gave me a long, cold look. It must have been obvious we were desperate and bluffing; I had little doubt he could come
up with a nasty variety of ways to force Dunya’s hand.
“Perhaps by the time the Moon of Saba is mine, your crew will have decided to serve a better captain,” he said coolly. “But
I am agreed. Throw your weapons over and tell your men to disarm.”
It killed me to toss down my sword and motion for my people to do the same, but my pride was a small price to pay. Falco’s
fighters came from the beast’s head, collecting our weapons and rounding up my crew. They bound the men in rope, and I was
briefly relieved to spot Tiny carrying Tinbu. My friend was still unconscious, but at least they’d freed him from the fallen
rudder. Dalila was at his side, her ribbon cap gone and iron shackles around her wrists and feet. Falco had obviously been
warned about the Mistress of Poisons.
“Bring the nakhudha here,” he ordered.
His men dragged me forward, holding my arms painfully behind my back. The Frank bent to pick up my weapons, examining my scimitar
before tossing it to Yazid.
“More your kind of blade, I believe. But this...” Falco retrieved the khanjar I had dropped among the tangle of carpentry
tools, and my blood boiled as he ran his fingers over the hilt of my grandfather’s dagger. “A leopard? Ah, yes, I think I
remember. They used to call your grandfather ‘the Sea Leopard,’ no?”
“Your obsession with me is embarrassing.”
“I suppose it was an obsession, yes. I’m disappointed; I had hoped to find in you a kindred spirit.” Falco closed the distance
between us, continuing to caress the khanjar as his men tightened their grip on my arms. “The Sea Leopard,” he mused. “A fearsome
pirate, he must have been. A true adventurer. Whereas you, well...
“You’re nothing.”
He struck me so hard across the face with the khanjar’s hilt that my vision briefly went black. A great shock of pain spasmed
across my cheek, blood bursting in my mouth. Before I could even think to react, he aimed a savage kick at my bad knee.
The world went white. His men let me go and I collapsed to the deck in agony, my leg crumpling beneath me.
“Stop!” Dunya cried. “You swore not to hurt her!”
At the edge of my starry vision, I saw my men lunge at Falco’s, but already disarmed and bound, they were swiftly pushed back.
“No, I said I would let the crew live.” Falco’s clammy fingers wrapped around my neck as he lifted me in the air with unnatural
strength. “I’m a man of my word, if nothing else.”
I scrabbled at the iron grip on my throat, an echo of my encounter with Raksh. I could not breathe, could not fight, my sandals
slipping on the wet deck as the Frank dragged me to the Marawati ’s edge.
“I wished we could have worked something out back in Socotra, nakhudha,” he continued. “But you see... I have your navigator and your first mate. Your poisoner, your crew, and your ship. And you strike me as a distrustful rat. Why, then, would I risk keeping you around?”
Gasping for air, I writhed in his hands. The storm raged around us, the ship rising and falling in crashing waves as rain
blasted my face. I was aware of Majed’s angry bellow. Of Dalila yelling my name and Dunya pleading.
Falco raised the khanjar. “I suppose I have taken enough from you. Here. Have this back.”
He shoved the dagger at my chest.
I tried to twist away, but pain sliced through my shoulder, hot blood spilling across my already drenched robe. My vision
was going blurry, Falco was thrusting me over the railing. There were screams, so many screams...
Marjana, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry .
Falco let go.
I crashed into the hard, cold water, and everything went black.